


Temperance & Blood

by capitainpistol



Category: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, DC Cinematic Universe, Suicide Squad (2016)
Genre: Catholic Character, Crisis of Faith, Español | Spanish, F/M, Ficlet Collection, Gen, Introspection, Multi, Other, Pyromania, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-08-07 21:57:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7731253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capitainpistol/pseuds/capitainpistol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chapter 4: Excerpts from Woodburnsource's deleted Lois Lane Interview with Amanda Waller.<br/>Chapter 3: Quinnshot<br/>Chapter 2: Rick/June<br/>Chapter 1: Chato</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Comienza temprano.

Chato lights a flame to keep the monsters away. A small dancing flame he turns to shooting stars. His brothers and sisters laugh. The only ones who ever did.

For a while his secret is kept and they tell no one. Not when they talk to Him right before bed. Chato always looked up too long as he recited his Santa Marias but it made his neck hurt, so he looked down. He said his prayers with closed fists on his chin and he squeezed his eyes lest the Devil should lock on to him.

-

The third degree burns wrinkle Benny’s skin to a crisp dark black, the rest of his smooth young brown arm boils and blisters with white. His screams are infectious and soon everyone is screaming, surprised by the smell of Benny’s flesh. A boy their age, skin dripping like candle wax.

Chato stumbles away, needing help to stand but gripping only cement. He’s going to explode. He doesn’t know how, but he is. The Devil come to finally take him, but scared as he is. He doesn’t want to die. He can keep it back. He’d done it before, at home.

“You want some too?!”

The ones who haven’t already scattered snap out of their stupor and run. He aims his anger at the sky he cannot see, and is shocked when fire emerges from his throat and burns a hole through the ceiling of the classroom, leaving him directly in the sight of God.

-

Chato says whatever they want to hear. From the ridiculous like “Hell yea, I’m hot.” To, “You don’t want to make me angry, do you?” Doesn’t take long for him not to say a damn thing. They read El Diablo on his face and their skin shivers, happy for the cold for first time. Ecstatic from the tickle of the a million tiny strands of hair standing alert on their arms.

Makes his job easier, gets him home earlier.

The kids instantly stop jumping when he arrives. They grab their rosaries and run the prayers in their head two, three times before they kneel on opposite side of him in front of the painting of the Lady.

He bows his head. Not too far. Not too high. Hands rubbing his children’s backs. He says the prayers out loud with them.

“Santa Maria, Madre de Dios, ruega por nosotros.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rick/june. [posted to tumblr](http://twoquickdeaths.tumblr.com/post/149332507755/rick-x-june-fic)

Witches grass veiled the walls, the tub, the floor, a thousand thin black fingers spreading out as if to stifle a scream.

“Help… me…”

Rick holstered his weapon and approached slowly. The smell was intoxicating, sweet and warm and delicious, clouding his mind of the next steps to be taken. All he wanted, he realized suddenly, was to protect her, get her out of there.

Rick entered the thick, dark water. “Put your hands ‘round me, girl.”

June, naked and shivering, welcomed his embrace. She sobbed quietly, muttering thank you over and over against his ear as he held her up with one hand and tore at the coils around her bare legs with his other. She weighed nothing and he lifted himself up without having to hold her at all. She was still strong, able to hold on herself.

Rick snatched the blanket his team had set out for her, and spread it over her nakedness.

“It’s all right,” he said, catching himself before he called her babygirl, promising then and there he’d always be there for her.

They spent every day together. Ate breakfast, lunch and dinner together. She fell asleep with his tall frame horizontal, sitting on a chair with his back straight, gun on his lap. He’d turn his head sideways and smile, and only then did she shut her eyes, calm and peaceful, knowing he’d be there when she woke up, packed and ready, an early, oh-four-hundred riser. Quiet and vigilant.

He thought he had a type. Crazy, loud, wild, but one random day June adjusted her glasses the way she did when she was nervous and her hair fell over her eyes. She brushed the strands behind her ear and smiled shyly at him, and he knew.

He. Was. Fucked.

He went to Waller to be reassigned. Preemptive strike.

The Enchantress didn’t scare him. Hell, it made June more interesting. It was the pain in her face when she changed back, the wide-eyed stunned look of a noncombatant thrust into war. She didn’t ask to fight. Yet there she was, beside him. Quiet and fearless. You’d have to be to enter an ancient tomb on pure instinct.

“I think you should pick someone else to watch over her,” he told his scary as shit boss, the obedient soldier in him beating the desperate, lonely, horny one that existed there too. “I’m getting too close to this and I don’t even know what this is.”

There were days when it was unbearable. All he wanted to do was take her to bed, worship her. Learn every curve of her. Kiss every inch. But besides being one half of an ancient being useful to Waller, June also helped Waller understand the long, forgotten history of metahumans like the Enchantress.

Waller had just smiled. “You’re her soldier boy. Deal with it.”

So he dealt with it. He shut that shit down. Sure, he stayed by her side as he was assigned, but he kept his distance, had to stop it before it even started. Before the earth was scorched.

Then June came to him, hurt and confused. “Did I do something wrong? Are you… are you afraid of me?”

Rick had gone to intensive SEAL training, but her voice broke him harder than that special Hell.

“No, no…” he said, shoulders slumped. He poured them drinks and went to sit in their latest hotel room. “Getting involved… it’s dangerous, June.”

She sat next to him, a small smile on her lips. Knees brushed his thighs as she came closer, fingers lightly scratching his arm. Their connection was inexplicable. He was a solider. She was… a different kind of soldier. Everyone followed him, trusted him. No one trusted her. Everyone feared her.

“Are you going to kiss me or not?”

Rick had never so ardently felt a fuck it in his life.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> harley goes to save floyd fic. introspection ensues.  
> quinnshot. griggs, waller, chato, waylon and katana appear.

“Hey, chickenshit, come here.”

Griggs signaled his men to stop from going in on the first provocation rule. He turned back to the small window looking into the cell where Floyd Lawton, most dangerous man with a gun, stepped right up.

“How’s Harley?”

There was no hiding the reaction. The entire team shook in their pants. Floyd caught it like a bad stench. 

“I usually hear her when she gets one of you. Like what? Twice a week?”

Griggs took his time answering. Relishing the next words coming out of his mouth. “That sweet piece of crazy ass, Doctor Harleen Quinzel. Escaped prisoner. Wanted fugitive. FBI. Domestic Security. Louisiana State Police. I think even the CIA has a cut in it. All them motherfuckers out for her and her crazy fuck boyfriend.”

“Joker.”

Griggs tried to sound nonchalant, but his voice lowered and instead of laughing, he coughed. “That’s right. Mr. J.”

Floyd smiled and muttered something under his breath.

Griggs leaned into the small opening. “What?”

“I said, good for her.”

Floyd moved faster than Griggs remembered he could, and before he knew it his face was aligned with the window, fingers closing on Floyd’s around his neck, nails digging into his pharynx. 

“Hard to talk?” Floyd asked.

“Littlebit.”

His men missed and that meant his face would get blown right off. Floyd completely protected by the thick metal cell door.

“Get me Waller.”

Floyd pushed him off. No one helped Griggs back up.

He spoke into the camera, where the guards were watching. 

“Waller. Now.”

 

-

 

“There it is again. Set up a perimeter. Go!”

The masked men were sworn to follow her every order… except leave her.

Harley Quinn lay belly down over rock to look into the shining blue water. She dipped her hand in and twirled circles, sending ripples along the surface.

Down and down and down they had come, four hours at least. They hadn’t known there was so much of Gotham City’s underworld.

“He’s here.”

Smiling Face aimed his AK after a shadow passed the clear waters.

Harley got up on her metal heels. 

“You might wanna step back, guys.”

The shadow lunged out, bringing a wave with him. Someone shot, but the bullets missed. Harley took out her gun and threatened to shoot whoever shot Croc. 

He landed right beside her. 

His exhale came out like a thick growl, sending everyone but Harley back a step. She wrapped an arm around his arm. “Everybody this is my friend, Waylon. He’s a crocodile.”

Smiling Face, Panda, the Fake Bat, the Tooth Fairy. They were all very excited to meet him.

“Hope you’re not afraid of a little fire,” Waylon said, much to Harley’s delight.

She always pocketed a loosey just in case. She took it out and blew on it.

“Now,” said Waylon.

“Now?” she asked.

He closed his arm around her and jumped back into the water. 

Fire spread like a blanket atop the shimmering blue, and Harley smiled wide, eyes popping open at Waylon. He stopped her from lifting up, until a hand broke through, strong and still warm, closing around hers.

Chato lifted Harley out of the water.

She screamed in delight and hugged him. 

“I knew you made it.”

She held up the cigarette, but it was broken in half. 

“I barely have to do a thing,” he said. “Smell the gas?”

The men were putting themselves out, and disappearing into the many passageways.

Harley stepped up to Smiley Face. He wasn’t burned to a crisp, but his clothes were, sticking to his skin in pink and purple blotches. She reached into his flak jacket for the radio. 

She pressed the button. “Pumpkin.”

A long silence. Then Joker’s raspy, high-pitched voice through static. “Come home.”

“Comin,” she lied, and let the button go.

Smiley Face came to and grabbed her ankle. “He’ll find you.”

Both Chato and Waylon were ready to pounce, but Harley simply kicked the gigantic ball that was his face with her free foot. 

Chato turned to Waylon. “Tell Floyd to get ready. We’re coming.”

He nodded and retreated back into the water.

 

-

 

Waller walked right out into the yard, pass the inmates. Half of them in there because of her. The other half curious to see her. All five foot five of her. 

“Ma’am…” said Griggs.

She walked right pass Griggs, making a line straight to Floyd at the weights. 

“You’re going to tell me you’re going to shoot Harley Quinn for me.”

He finished his set and came up. “You really think you have all the answers.”

“She’s surprisingly evasive,” began Waller without preamble. “But a man like Joker is not one to lay low. We’ll catch her like we did last time. Wait for them to fuck up. Their kind always fucks up.”

“You wouldn’t be this happy if you didn’t have something.” Floyd toweled the sweat off his face. “Forty-eight hours.”

Waller smiled. “What do I get?”

“I nice report to take back to Washington. Your Task Force project produces results. Harley comes back voluntarily. Maybe she doesn’t kill half your team before you get to her. Unless that’s not a problem for you.”

“What do you think?”

“I think if Joker can break into here, then what’s to stop me from breaking out. There’s this house. A house in New Orleans. You wanna know what they call it?”

Another smile from Waller. “Forty eight hours.”

“Full resources.”

She nodded, and added, “A partner.”

“Lemme guess.”

“Flag and the girl. June Moone.”

“The Tried To Take Over The World chick?”

“That very one.”

“Fantastic.”

 

-

 

“Stop right there, Floyd.”

“You are out of your mind, you know that, white boy?”

Griggs clicked his teeth as Floyd reached for his closest holstered Nine. “Hands up.”

“Gonna read me my Miranda rights too? Dumbass.”

“OK Enough! Hear that? That’s a dozen of the world’s most dangerous people having a picnic. That’s chaos reigning. That’s Oops. My gun went off, Judge. What are they gonna do to me?” 

Floyd turned around, shaking his head. Shooting this idiot wasn’t worth a grain. “Believe it or not, Griggs. This ain’t about us right now. As much as I would love to school your ass. You gotta let me go.”

“Or? Think I’m afraid of that bitch Waller?”

Floyd smiled. “Nah. It ain’t her you have to worry about.”

“Spring Break, asshole,” said Harley behind Griggs.

She could hear the National Anthem playing as she took position. The idiot turning in slow mo, falling for the easiest trick in the book. Her bat met his mouth, his teeth shattered and spat out in the impact, his body suddenly remembering that it was attached to the head.

Floyd had a whole slew of greetings, but none of them came out in time. The block walls went ablaze, and the screaming started in earnest. Chato walked through the middle, a path left completely devoid of flames. Anyone who came from behind was closed off. They had to decide between their skins or their job.

“Now they know you’re back,” said Floyd, following Chato and Harley out. 

Heat shimmered all around them, the tips of flames dancing over their shoulders; as if any second it would reach and touch them after all.

“They were going to find out eventually,” Chato said.

“What about your no kill rule?” asked Floyd.

“Now it’s more like You Try To Kill Us, We’re All On The Same Page rule,” explained Harley.

He stopped her. “And Joker?”

Harley forced a smile. “Who?”

They made it to the Boiler Room, the bottommost room in Belle Reve, where Waylon emerged from the ground up, opening an abandoned pipeline. Chato went in first. 

Harley smiled and gestured to Floyd, “Ladies first.”

The room had thick lead lined walls. The noise from the chaos in the wards above almost completely muffled. Floyd thought he heard something.

Harley took the chance to check him out. He sure did look good in his uniform.

“What are you doing all dressed up?” She asked. 

“I was coming to get you.”

Harley smiled, but said nothing. She nudged him to go in. “Before they catch us.”

At the bottom of the stair stood Katana. She spoke in Japanese. Neither of them understood, but as always, her tone put them on edge.

Katana’s comms flared. Their resident boy scout Flag, asking for the all clear. Katana took only a second, then she said another few words in Japanese, turned her back to Floyd and Harley, and left.

 

-

 

“This place ain’t terrifying at all.”

Harley pressed a finger from one end of the wall to the other, the tip coming out black. “Very Son of a Thousand Maniacs.”

“Alright. Let’s do this. Sure I have to be laying down?”

Harley grinned. “I’m sure you have to disarm that thing in your neck.”

Floyd lay back on the rustic slab that was the centerpiece of this old, abandoned part of the asylum. Waylon and Chato securing an escape and safe house would be for nothing if they could track Floyd.

Harley found a white lab coat and slipped it on. 

“Really?” He asked when she stood over him, her visage upside down. 

Harley crunched up her nose and gently placed her hands on either side of his temple. He reached to remove the eyepiece.

Harley slapped his hand away. “No touchy.”

She came around slowly. Her fingers trailed along his arm and down his long leg. She strapped his wrists, came around and did the same on the other side.

“Into this shit?” He asked, after he heard her muttering under her breath.

Unblinking, she said, “Depends.”

With tender care, she caressed his shoulders, and he shut his eyes as her sharp fingernails trailed against his stubbly skull.

“The beard would have to go, though.”

“Contract negotiations. I’m good at that.”

“No beard.”

“Gone. You?”

“I want you…. to trust me.” She leaned down to look directly over him, caressing his beard. “Do you?”

He smiled. “Is there a reason I shouldn’t?”

Her eyes lit up. “I’m going to hurt you, Floyd.”

“You’re helping me. It ain’t the same, _Harleen_.”

She snapped back up. “No. I suppose not. It’s still going to hurt.”

“This EMP shit. It won’t kill me, right?”

“Just turn your brain to pudding.”

“Cute.”

“Open wide.”

Floyd took a deep breath and shook his head and then nodded, opening his mouth.

Harley set the belt in his mouth before he could complain about the blinding pain coursing through his neck, shutting off the nanite that could turn his face to squash.

 

-

 

Belle Reve looked like the seventh circle. The lights reached all the way to the safe house, not a mile away. Harley walked back and forth across the room, staring out, still wearing the lab coat.

“They’re going to find us.”

Floyd unloaded and reloaded his guns, cleaning them over a dirty blanket on the floor. “First rule. Find a spot. Keep your ass there. FBI, they’re like a bad spill. All they want to do is spread out, man searches.”

“I know how they work. I’m just worried. Croc and Diablo should’ve been here already.” She kicked one of the many junk boxes lying around. “I want out.”

Floyd set his guns down. “Come here.”

Harley’s back went stiff at the command. “What?”

He pulled out a custom made knife. “I never bring these to a fight. Never thought I’d have much use for them. Though it’s gonna suck.” The water he was using was a nice, shitty brown, just like the rest of their “safe house.” A room in a broken down tenement building that never took off because of its neighbor. 

Floyd threw the knife at her and she caught it with a snap. 

“Ain’t you worried?” 

“How about we finish this little trust exercise, and then I’ll tell you how worried I am.” 

Harley came to him sitting there on the floor, and straddled him. 

“I do draw the line at acid baths.”

“I wouldn’t want you to,” she said. “Chin up, shooter.”

Harley started removing his beard. Every scrape, she rolled her hips closer. Every bob of his Adam’s apple made her bite her lip.

“Gotta tell you something, Harley.”

“Uh-oh,” she said. “Sounds serious.”

“I’m going to regret it, too.” His fingers were sprawled on her ass, surprisingly plump for a white girl. He got in one last squeeze, one last roll against his cock. He wished he had more hair so she could cut it off with those calm, calm hands.

He sighed. “You gotta come back.”

The knife was at the last batch of hair below his temple.

“You didn’t come to get me,” she said, voice hollow. “You came to bring me back.”

Floyd removed his hands the moment she brought the knife to his neck and applied pressure against his skin.

“We’re free. We’re goddamn free, Floyd.”

“And what’s gonna happen? There ain’t no way in hell I’ll ever get to see my daughter, not unless I fight through Fort Knox. Every time. And I get to her, what’s next? Make her a fugitive for the rest of her life. Make her scared. Have her looking over her shoulder. Teach her how to defend herself. Make her just like her daddy.”

“Hell yes.”

“She’s a kid, Harley. I gotta think about her. That’s what you do when you love the people you love. You take care of them. You protect them.”

Harley wasn’t sure what she just heard, but she drew blood. The tiniest prick. 

“Still trust me now?”

“Hell yes.”

“Things are gonna be different. No Griggs. It’s all good.”

“I didn’t say that, but at least we know he ain’t gonna be smiling anymore.”

She smiled, but she bit it down. “How can you protect me behind a wall?”

“I can try to protect you.”

“They’re gonna kill us, Floyd. If not the next mission, then the other one. They’re going to use us up. They don’t care. What else is new?”  
He carefully took her hand and held it with the knife between their palms. “You. Me. Our friends. They ain’t here yet, you know what that means.”

Floyd got up with Harley still straddled. She closed her legs around him and wrapped an arm around his neck as he walked to the window. 

He pointed at Belle Reve, the roof on fire. “Pretty lights.”

The room shook, and over the building flew helicopters and Black Hawks, all of them there instead of spilling out. 

“You sure know how to charm a girl.”

She touched his face, savoring the smoothness. He leaned in to kiss her, but she stopped him, pressing her palm over his mouth. 

Floyd pointed up at his face, mumbling underneath her hand. “This beard was prime.”

“I ain’t negotiating. I want you to kiss me. Just not here. Not yet.” 

Her eyebrows arched as she unwrapped her legs to stand. 

Harley clicked her teeth and pointed down.

Floyd closed his arms on either side of her, looked at the fire and chaos outside the window and back at her. It was going to be one hell of a night.


	4. Chapter 4

Hey, ya’ll. I’m back for a really, really weird post. I was battling insomnia and contemplating continuing my online Daily Planet subscription when I headed over to their begrudged collaborator Woodburnsource.com through spiral clicking. You know what happens when you enter that site. I was there for a while when they posted excerpts of an exclusive interview by Lois Lane, bringing to light information that clears up several unsettling rumors that have gestated in the public consciousness since the strange shut down of Midway City back in August. 

I took screen grabs by pure chance and didn't get very far because I was rereading whole passages. Besides, I never knew a Woodburnsource article to be deleted. Redacted and updated, yes, but never deleted, especially not a Lois Lane interview. She is a well known source for Woodburnsource and those collaborations between the Planet and the site are often spearheaded by her. Her first article on Superman, before Zod arrived and before he even had a name, published as Anonymous just days before Black Zero, was due to Glenn Woodburn's implicit trust in the Pulitzer Prize winning reporter. 

Here’s where it gets weird. The interview was up at 2:32 AM, edited at 2:42, and taken down seven minutes later, at 2:49. I clicked for the next page, and poof, the entire site was down. Not just the page! The whole site! When it returned hours later, the article had been taken down. 

I don't know what that means, and I'm not entirely sure what's going on, but here are some unsettling new facts. Glenn Woodburn is currently in government custody and Lois Lane hasn't been seen since the candid of her holding Superman's body was published six months ago. Things are rotten in the state indeed…

Without further ago. Here is a transcription of the screengrabs.

 

[Edited to add: sources confirm the interviewee is FBI Special Agent Amanda Waller]

 

Waller: Are you comfortable, Miss Lane?

Lane: I thought I was asking the questions. And it’s Lois.

Waller: Are you recording this?

Lane: No.

Waller: You've already earned your stripes, Miss Lane. Do me the courtesy.

Lane: All you have to say is ‘off the record.’ Then it’s useless to me.

Waller: Useless to you. Three very small, but important words. Are you hungry? I can order us something to eat.

Lane: No, thank you. What happened in Midway?

Waller: What happened in Gotham and Metropolis, Miss Lane. You were there.

Lane: Are you saying another Kryptonian caused a complete evacuation and city wide black out?

Waller: I'm saying we are living in interesting times, Miss Lane.

 

-

 

Waller: You remember what it was like. They flew down from the heavens and we were at their mercy. And suddenly everyone remembered there were things more powerful than humans. 

Lois: People, you mean. Metas.

Waller: People, things, places, whens. The report about the singularity that got rid of the Black Zero. A vacuum, a door, that can be opened and closed. If you find the right key. The Kryptonians spent out their civilization honing its power. Now everyone involved in that plan is dead.

Lane: My sources say that’s not true. 

Waller: Does your source know where they went? The aliens who took over all our screens, our internet, within a blink. The singularity was to widen a gap between dimensions, Miss Lane. Those Kryptonians didn’t implode or explode, they’re alive. Don’t let anyone fool you in thinking we’re safe. 

Lane: Here we are back again. I asked you if there were black ops specially stationed in Midway due to the threat. I didn’t ask you about the Kryptonians.

Waller: I believe things happen in quick succession. The Kryptonians force Superman's hand. Superman forces Lex Luthors. Does it matter if it was black ops? 

Lane: It matters. This isn't just Blackwater. Something is going on.

 

-

 

Waller: Does it upset you, Miss Lane? The possibility of Luthor's freedom.

Lois: No comment.

Waller: Cute. Without Superman as a witness, there's a chance.

Lois: Who is being interviewed here?

Waller: Indulge me.

Lois: Luthor will be judged by a jury of his peers. We have to respect the system.

Waller: Hope in the system is dangerous, Miss Lane.

Lois: I said respect.

Waller: [laughs] 

 

\- 

 

Lois: Let’s talk about Terrebonne.

Waller: [laughs] Thought you’d never ask.


End file.
